I write about food. I write about family. I write about popular culture. I write.

Menu

I’m not voting YES

…because I believe in marriage. Marriage is a lovely, romantic idea. It really is and I used to believe in it. But unlike Elizabeth Taylor, the romantic glow has worn off after two marriages where husband 1 and husband 2 walked out without any prior warning or discussion. I have seen too many marriages fall apart, people turning love into hate, people walking out not only on spouses but children and responsibilities.

I want to believe in a happy-ever-after in the same way I want to believe in unicorns and fairies… it seems like a beautiful idea but the lack of evidence is simply overwhelming. So I have come to believe in happy-right-now. Right now is all we’ve got so carpe diem out of today mofos. Why make promises about tomorrow that you can’t or won’t take seriously? Let’s keep this shit real. There’s no god, there’s no unicorns and the chances that the homo sapien you love today and who appears to love you back will still love you tomorrow are, give or take, in the winning Lotto range of probability.

So I’m not voting YES in the ridonkulous Marriage Plebishite because I want members of the gay community to be able to waste gazillions of dollars on a marriage ceremony/party/whatever-form-of-celebration-involving-overpriced-wedding-paraphernalia they choose. I’m voting YES because I believe in equality. I believe in people not being humiliated and made to feel less-than because of who they are attracted to and where they choose to stick their sexy bits. I believe in people being able to live without judgement (unless it’s judgement of taste – or lack of – in music), without fear – real, actual fear.

I want Marriage Equality to pass and to become the norm and for all those people who are screaming that it’ll mean the end of civilisation and destroy the “sanctity” of marriage *cough *laugh *vomit to eat their stupid words and go back to finding something else to fear. I want to be part of a society where couples of every variety can live in a loving relationship without being shunned by their family or being denied basic human rights.

It is so fucking simple. Get your nose out of people bedrooms and lives. Mind your own bloody business. Let people live as they choose as long as they are not harming others. Don’t judge others by what your imaginary friend in the sky allegedly said *cough *bullshit. Live and let live. Stop being a fucking hypocrite.

An interesting post and some thoughts and opinions I most definitely agree with – including the romanticising and glorification of marriage as the new religion, including the totally unrealistic view that you can pair up in your 20s and never look again at another person with lust or attraction (or act on it) for the rest of your life, and all the dogma and other shit that goes with the INSTITUTION of marriage. I agreed with the 90s feminists who said ‘why would gay people want this institution?’ but like you, I agree absolutely with their legal and moral right to seek it. I wish more people would read or listen to Esther Perel who speaks clearly, wisely and with compassion about just how tough it is to make a marriage last, and how to go about understanding why it did not, or why infidelity happens (oh so frequently). My own marriage at 21 lasted more than 20 years, most of them happy but not without problems. What shits me is when people define something that ultimately ended as a ‘failure’ when that could be a lifetime for people who might have met later in life, rather than as teens (as we did). That attitude also flies in the face of my belief that time or duration sometimes does not count for much. And on the scale of things, a piece of paper or a span of years does not equate to quality, intensity or value. My two cents!